Leviathan 2009 - Rise of Underbelly

Leviathan is one smaller BB tournaments in Sydney, run by the Western Suburb Gaming Society its been going for while. The BB tournament used to be run by Emma Bigwood, but a couple of years ago Tribalsinner took over and converted it into a 1.1m resurrection format. The main difference between this and Euc Bowl is that Leviathan allows multiple skills to be bought on each player.

As one of the first tournaments to allow the 3 new BBRC endorsed teams I thought I'd try one to see how they did and get another Australian #1 NAF ranking. The team I had the minis for was Underworld - a mix of goblins and skaven - and I was hoping no one else would take them. However GardenGnome did, so I had some competition! The roster I took was

• Troll, with Guard & Claw
• 2x Blitzer with Claw & Mighty Blow
• 2x Line rat with Wrestle & Tackle
• 1x Thrower with leader
• 7 Goblins with nothing
• 2 Rerolls

I thought the three Claw/Mighty Blow "tin openers" might give me a chance against the bashier teams and help keep the numbers fairly even. The line rats would act as safeties or to help punch holes and I had enough players to keep 11 on the pitch when the inevitable casualties mounted up.

First up was Creature and his first ever game with Ogres. Four break tackle ogres & 9 Snotlings, 3 with diving tackle. This was pretty close to a perfect game. The first five or six blocks removed 4 snotlings, including all the diving tackle. The troll cas'd two of the ogres and I just ran riot. 4-0 TDs and eventually a whopping 11-1 on cas. That was easily the most cas I've ever scored in a game and plenty of tournaments I haven't even got 11 cas!

That put me up against GeoffWatson and a heavily tooled up 'zon team. 12 linewomen, 2 with wrestle, tackle, strip ball & frenzy, one with block, sure hands & KoR, the rest with block. Even with two wrestle I knew this would be a tough tough game and I expected to get thoroughly hammered. I received and the drive turned to mush and I got turned over and scored on. Geoff received and went down one flank. I managed to sack the ball carrier and after a little to-ing and fro-ing he threw over the thrower who promptly rolled a 6 for the intercept, ran upfield and scored. If I remember correctly I then got a blitz which disrupted his offence enough to stop a winner. 1-1 draw, with 1-2 on cas.

Third game was Chaos Dwarves, normally a nightmare opponent. Their coach, Emily is a very inexperinced coach, and that was the decisive factor. The can openers kicked in and two CDs cas'd and 3 KO'd in the opening drive left her feeling badly mauled and defensive. Another quick score and it was 2-0 to me before half time. With the game effectively won I tried to give some coaching tips which ended up costing me a couple of goblins! Another two TDs meant it ended up 4-0 and 2-3 on cas.

2 wins and a draw left me in third place overnight, with only Sangraal & Angryman undefeated I could feel a podium finish with a tier 2 team. Thomsy was next, with an Elf team I'd designed for him. 2 Blitzers one with tackle & one with strip ball, 2 Catchers with block, leader on a thrower, kick on a lineman and 4 wrestle linemen too.

This was probably the game which swung most for me all tournament. I received and just had another offence fall apart. The troll was stupid two turns in a row and then the thrower rolled quad both downs to turnover and give Thomsy an easy TD. The next drive went a bit better with me managing to get a few elves KO'd and by some fluke I managed to get into position to equalise, but dropped the catch in the endzone. Second half was just awful for Thomsy. He rolled a 1 on almost every dodge allowing me to turn him over relatively easily and equalise. With the numbers my way Thomsy once again suffered a bout of 1s diease giving me two chances to pickup the ball - I failed both and disasterously scatter the ball to a waiting catcher who had an easy waltz into the endzone for their 2nd. Two turns wasn't enough and I lost 1-2, with 1-2 on cas too.

Redcard was next, with a 3-0-1 record and a brutual LRB5 Khemri team. Things looked good at the start with pouring rain, a blitz and him leaving a mummy off the pitch. I swarmed the backfield, he failed the pickup on 5s and I turned him over and scored. However I burned all my rerolls doing so and he killed the troll who failed to regen. He still had time to score and the kick went towards the LOS - giving him time to score. I then had an awful defence, 1 dice blitzes against the mummies with the can openers rolled skulls and I couldn't dodge - an easy equaliser for him. Second half I was badly outnumbered and out strengthed - then he got a perfect D, so I decided to withdraw, keep the ball safe and make a play on turn 6 or so to try and nab a winner. Things were going well until a quad skulls from a can opener left the ball carrier exposed and I got turned over - once again a bouncing ball landing in my opponent's hands to win him the game. Lost 1-2, and 2-6 on Cas.

Kurt and his Orcs were next. This was by far the most luck affected game in my favour. I received and hit a brick wall and bounced off. I tried breaking upfield, but lost possession and the ball changed hands a couple of times. However I managed to recover and scramble upfield. A blitzer came in to whack the thrower with the ball, snake eyed the GFI and then killed himself. The same turn the can openers took out another one. Then in the dead turn another blitzer managed to kill himself blocking a goblin - no Orc blitzers to start the 2nd half and I had a big numbers advantage. Things just got better with the can openers tearing the remaining orcs to bits and the rest of the team running in 3 2nd half TDs for another 4-0 win. 7-3 on cas (against Orcs!).

Final position was 7th out of 22, which I'd have taken pre-tournament but I'm a little disappointed having been 3rd overnight not to place higher. Even so I got 24 cas and 15 TDs - 2nd placed in both categories. Congratulations to Thomsy who won with a 5-1-0 record. Redcard was 2nd with 5-0-1. Angryman was 3rd, pipping Grumpsh on TDs. Emm won most cas (25), Mathfuric sports, Sangraal painting, Linda encouragement and I picked up TDs. Unless there is a miracle on the NAF ranking Gnome's 3-0-3 record ought to be worse than mine giving me a 6th Australian #1 ranking :)

On Underworld I think this was a very favourable format - maybe about a favourable as you'll get in a tournament. Resurrection means the fragility of the team as a whole isn't a big problem, 1.1m to buy players and skills means money is tight so my 13 players, 11 skills and 3 rerolls (includng leader) meant I had a level of robustness others couldn't match. Finally multiple skills really helps. The ability in particular to field 3 Claw/MB players meant some teams just couldn't live with damage I could inflict. However the fragility, and general weakness of the team overall definitely played a big part in Redcard's win and to a less extent contributed to the loss to Thomsy and draw with Geoff.